The Journal reports:
The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation is adding another peak-hour bus to the commuter service it now provides between Mount Airy and Winston-Salem.
The route along U.S. 52 to Mount Airy is one leg of PART’s weekday regional bus network, which also has routes through Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point.
The new operation is expected to cost $72,000 a year. it will be paid for with fares from increased ridership, state transportation grants and money generated by the rental-car tax that PART collects in Surry, Forsyth and Guilford counties……..
Also yesterday, the PART board unanimously approved collecting a 5 percent tax on rental vehicles in Stokes County to help add a park-and-ride lot and another stop along U.S. 52 in King. The new bus service isn’t expected to start until late next year.
Update: For the sake of discussion, I’m going to run the numbers. It’s just me and my key-chain calculator here, so help me out if I miss it.
PART director Brent McKinney said the $72,000 cost of the extra service would be paid for with fares from increased ridership, state transportation grants and money generated by the rental-car tax that PART collects in Surry, Forsyth and Guilford counties. With that extra service, we’re looking at 120 people paying fares on the four buses. Let’s assume they’ll all purchase the $50 monthly pass, which multiplied over a year’s time comes to $72,000, which is the cost of operating just one bus. So the rest will have to be made up in public money.
If, however, everybody pays the $4 round-trip fare, that will generate $124,000, which is the cost of running two buses, assuming the cost of running the other services are the same as running the new one.
